If you love those “Risk It! or Regret It!” Comeback Stories…you’re gonna love this one.
As heard on The Debbie Nigro Show – Wellness Wednesday Edition
Move over French fries, there’s a new crispy craving in town — and it’s doing more than just satisfying your snack attack. It’s feeding school kids, shaking up convenience stores, and making waves nationwide. Meet Stephen Caldwell, founder of Stuft Tots™, the world’s first patented stuffed shredded potato bite.
These aren’t your average tots. Think crispy outside, gooey inside — filled with real Wisconsin cheese, veggies, or meats — all under 60 calories, gluten-free, non-GMO, and made with just five clean ingredients.
Stephen’s inspiration? A cheese-stuffed hashbrown he tasted at a catering event in Brazil that gave him goosebumps. Unable to find anything like it back home in Portland, Stephen and his wife Lory turned their kitchen into a lab (with help from Oregon State’s food incubator) — and later, their tot mission into a movement.
But this isn’t just a food story. It’s a comeback story.
After losing ‘everything’ in a business betrayal, the Caldwell’s literally started from scratch. They spent 15 months hand-making 2,000 tots a week — simultaneously feeding the homeless in partnership with the Oregon Food Bank. Alongside their two daughters, they turned hardship into purpose and passion.
Fast forward to today! The Stuft Tots™ story now includes:
*Winner of Convenience Store News 2024’s Best New Product Award
*Loved by high schoolers in Alameda CA School District – 8700 students’ approved
*Blew the doors off a Holiday Station Stores test — sold out 40,000 lbs. of tots in 6 days
*Now powered by high-speed “co-extruder” machines in a booming Las Vegas production facility
*Soon to be in stadiums, schools, coffee chains, bars and convenience outlets nationwide
AND STEPHEN CALDWELL GOT A PATENT ON A STUFFED SHREDDED POTATO? Gotta Love it.
Stephen’s motto? “If everybody waited for money to start a business, no businesses would be started.”
Check out Stephen’s Feature Story in the June issue of the Food Industry’s Premier News Source:“Total Food Service” a fantastic publication published by fabulous Fred Klashman which features exclusive Q&A Interviews with influential chefs, hospitality trendsetters, and foodservice operators, as well as the latest foodservice industry news on products, trends, associations, and events.
Stephen Caldwell’s inspiring journey is a powerful reminder to – as I always say… “Risk it! or Regret it!”
And trust me — once you try Stuft Tots™, you can’t un-taste them. 🙂
I love this guy’s passion, comeback story and his Stuft Tots™ so much so I want to help him succeed.
If you’d like a personal introduction to Stephen just direct message me and I’ll set it up asap. Want to be one of the first to bring them to your school, stadium, store, or bar/restaurant? Get in touch with me – Debbie@DebbieNigro.com
Tune in to this energetic podcast interview with Stephen Caldwell heard live on The Debbie Nigro Show – but only if you want to hear a really authentic story told by a truly gritty and great entrepreneur.
If you’d rather read than listen the transcript of the audio is below.
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AUDIO TRANSCRIPT:
And now back to the Debbie Nigro Show.
0:00:18
(Speaker 5)
Like the legend.
0:00:19
(Speaker 2)
Ah, you never know who’s going to become a legend, what’s going to become a legend. Somebody has to start something new and then just stick with it for as long as they can possibly stick with and then get everybody else to get excited about it and for you know, you have a Legendary story. All right, so I’m big on legendary stories. I’m big on breaking Information and introducing you to things you may not have heard of before because I’m a crazy entrepreneur myself and I love Reading about everybody and so and I like connecting with people right so today is Wellness Wednesday on the Debbie Nigro show and I
0:00:49
(Speaker 2)
have a gentleman I’m going to introduce you to named Stephen Caldwell who I’ve come to adore who actually we met on LinkedIn he had seen what I did what I do for a living and he thought maybe I could help tell his story was a long time ago well we got connected I loved his story so much that I just like, okay, let me just get involved here because I wanted, I knew I could help him a little bit. Anyway, I think he’s created the definitive healthier alternative to French fries. Thank goodness knows I love
0:01:18
(Speaker 2)
French fries. And I always loved tater tots too. I was one of those chubby little kids who couldn’t wait to eat the whole tray my mother would pull out of the oven. My skinny mother had three chubby kids who loved, you know, tater tots. Anyway, Stephen Caldwell invented and patented the first ever stuffed shredded potato. Now, this is very different. The story is very fascinating. He’s got a patent on what’s now called stuffed tots and he does good for the world too. So let’s bring him along. Stephen, good to have you buddy. How are you? Good morning, Debbie. How are you? Doing great. Mr. Potato Magic. We’re gonna call you Mr. Potato Magic, all right? On
0:01:56
(Speaker 2)
the Wellness Wednesday show that I do every week, Stephen, I thought you’d fit today because I’m worried about, you know, what kids eat these days, what adults eat these days, where everybody loves to snack and just tries to do a better version of it. And I think you’ve got it, right? Gluten-free, non-GMO, patented, popping up in schools and stadiums and restaurants and airports and more stuffed tots.
0:02:18
(Speaker 2)
So your story about how you first got attracted to this idea is worth you telling. And you might want to just tell everybody about your travels and how you came got attracted to this idea is worth you telling and you might want to just tell everybody about your travels and how you came upon the idea. Sure, thank you Debbie very much for
0:02:30
(Speaker 1)
having me on. This started about 15 years ago when I was, I’ve been a foodie and a pseudo chef my whole life since the Galloping Gourmet at the age of five to Julia Childs as both my mentors. Fast forward, I never pursued it as a career. I was in Brazil where I had an office and the heavy equipment and I was at a catering event and these two Brazilian gentlemen started frying hash browns, filling it with cheese and meat and then covering it,
0:02:55
(Speaker 1)
frying it on both sides. And when I tasted it, and I’ve been in different parts of the world in my travels with businesses, this was the first time it ever gave me goosebumps. It’s so simple. It was really simple.
0:03:10
(Speaker 1)
It’s basically cheese and potatoes and then different meats and vegetables inside of a hash brown. Fast forward, I came home, couldn’t find it. With the help of the Oregon State University in Portland, Oregon, a food incubator, they helped Lori and I, my wife, develop it about nine years ago and fast track to today.
0:03:28
(Speaker 1)
We now have a stuff cot that we’re focusing on food service schools, hospitality, stadiums, as you said. And they’re all about one and a half ounce, a good solid two-biter. And they’re all 60 calories or less, Debbie. Like you said, they’re clean labels.
0:03:44
(Speaker 1)
Schools love them. And 60 calories or less Debbie like you said they’re clean labels schools love them and five ingredients or less it’s it’s it’s potatoes it’s a good carb and it’s got all the best Wisconsin cheeses and different meats so we’ve got vegetarian and meat filled for breakfast lunch dinner after-school snacks it’s truly an all-day part it’s crispy it’s gooey it’s
0:04:03
(Speaker 2)
delicious I love it I love the story and what I also love is that while you were developing this over out in Oregon, is it Oregon? Oregon. I mean, how do you guys pronounce it?
0:04:14
(Speaker 1)
Oregon.
0:04:15
(Speaker 2)
Oregon. As you were developing this in Oregon, you were also feeding the homeless. Explain
0:04:19
(Speaker 1)
that part of the story because that tells a lot about your heart as a human. Debbie, you know, in life we have good times and we have not so good times. I don’t like referring to them as bad times, but in that heavy equipment company that I told you I was involved in before I developed this, I had a partner that took my wife and I down for several million dollars. We lost everything. Cars were being re-powed in front of our house while our kids were at the bus stop.
0:04:46
(Speaker 1)
And I woke up the next morning and Lori said, what are we going to do? I said, babe, we now have the time to start this new filled potato. She said, we have no money. I said, if everybody waited for money to start a business, no businesses would be started. And that’s exactly what happened. I said, what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna partner with the Oregon Food Bank. The Bible says first fruits,
0:05:06
(Speaker 1)
it’s better to give than to receive. And so we went down to the Oregon Food Bank, partnered with them, and we started feeding the homeless. And for the next 15 months, Lorraine and I made 2,000 of these, filled them by hand, baked them off and fed the homeless twice a week with our two youngest daughters, Allie and Lizzie. And it really showed them what the true meaning of empathy is and really giving back to our community. And that truly became
0:05:29
(Speaker 1)
our research and development or our R&D to where we are today.
0:05:33
(Speaker 2)
Amazing. So, you know, for those of you who have just tuned in, this is Stephen Caldwell, who along with his wife, Lori Caldwell, created this, what’s become, and it was just in Convenience Store News Magazine, 2024’s Best New Product Award for Overall Innovation. Amazing. This was rated by consumers based on taste and convenience, value, healthfulness, ingredients, appearance, preparation requirements, and packaging. So congratulations to you because that’s a long way from just getting your cars repossessed,
0:06:02
(Speaker 2)
my friend and and I just think that this is a timely product for where we are right now especially with the schools and the nutrition programs can you talk about what happened at the Alameda school district when you went in there to test this with the students absolutely great
0:06:19
(Speaker 1)
question and thank you Alameda is in East Bay California outside of San Francisco and it’s one of the top schoola is in East Bay, California, outside of San Francisco, and it’s one of the top school districts on the East Bay. And they reached out and they said, listen, we’ve got French fries. We want something that’s better for you, that kids will resonate with. So they’re not going off campus to 7-Eleven and grabbing all that stuff. They want to stay on campus. So we did a test with them about a year ago and they came back and they ran it by about 20 different high schoolers, randomly chosen.
0:06:50
(Speaker 1)
And it was 20 out of 20 and they said if we had these in here, we will love them. And we started shipping them and they decided to start on just Fridays, two Fridays a month. And they just kept running out of them every single time. And they love the fact, truly, that they’re portable. They’re handheld. They get two in a little baggie that they can grab in the lunch line and the reviews
0:07:15
(Speaker 1)
have been absolutely amazing. And they wrote us a review on it that is just five stars and it’s really wonderful and that really you know sparked us and got us going with the one of the number one school
0:07:31
(Speaker 2)
distributors in all of California now. That’s awesome I love your story. Now tell about what happened when you tested these in the Holiday Station stores which is a chain of convenience stores because it’s this is a product that you’re gonna start seeing everywhere, but here’s the first act. Go ahead, Stephen, talk about that act.
0:07:49
(Speaker 1)
Thank you, Debbie. We were in about 3,000 retail stores nationwide due to COVID, and the cost of packaging, and building a brand, and starting a category that’s never been done before, creating a category because there’s never been
0:08:01
(Speaker 1)
a filled potato in the market today, hence the US patent. Circle K had a
0:08:12
(Speaker 4)
subsidiary, a sister company called Holiday Station Store, 600 of them in the Midwest.
0:08:18
(Speaker 1)
They reached out to us and said, we’d like to do an LTO, a limited-time offer, just for eight weeks, and let’s see what kind of traction we have. They decided that they were going to launch it in a hot case so when you walk into a convenience store gas station you see the hot cases with the wings and the pizza and the taquitos. They were going to offer it to in a boat or a tray and so they ordered two flavors. They ordered 40,000 pounds of finished product, full semi-truckload. And they said, as long as you have them at our distributor in Minnesota on June 30th, we’ll launch them July 1st and we’ll call you in two months, you know, the following September and let you know how we did. So we do all that, we fulfilled it, they were launching one flavor in the
0:08:58
(Speaker 1)
morning for breakfast and one flavor at lunchtime and it wasn’t six days, Debbie. July 6th they called me hair on fire. They’re sold out. And they were calling them spud kicks. So they ordered two more semis. I got those out quickly to them, 18 days later.
0:09:16
(Speaker 1)
Two weeks after that, they sold out. Sent them another two truckloads. It didn’t even last eight weeks. It lasted six and a half weeks, and that proved our model for consumer awareness, response, and loving them. And so that’s what really sparked us
0:09:33
(Speaker 1)
and proved our model for where we’re going today.
0:09:35
(Speaker 2)
Amazing. So when we first started talking, it was freezing winter. You were sitting in a car in some portion of the East Coast outside a manufacturing plant that was small.
0:09:44
(Speaker 3)
And now you’re in Las Vegas Coast outside a manufacturing plant that was small.
0:09:45
(Speaker 2)
And now you’re in Las Vegas at a huge manufacturing plant with yet another crazy machine that I saw you ordered that I saw actually at the New York restaurant show that makes these things like, how fast do they make them, a zillion a minute? What is that stuffing machine?
0:10:01
(Speaker 1)
What is that thing? If you’re standing next to it, you would think it’s a zillion a minute. It’s basically what’s referred to as a co-extruder machine that takes all of our potatoes, you know, threads on one side, whatever we’re filling it with on the other side, and it co-extrudes it where it actually fills a hash brown in the correct size that we need,
0:10:24
(Speaker 1)
and each machine does just under a hundred pieces a minute. A minute. And then for yes and it’s it’s it’s unbelievable and it’s I’m like a kid in a candy store and so yes I’m sitting here and in our boardroom in Las Vegas Nevada and it’s our home plant where we’re where we finally landed for good and we’re doing some big things. Well I
0:10:44
(Speaker 2)
want you to know when you sent me the samples, I said, I want to try these things. So I’ll send you some samples. We used an air fryer, which is what you recommend people use at home, an air fryer, or you can put them in the oven.
0:10:53
(Speaker 2)
And if you have a, you know, if you’re a store owner and you have convenience equipment, little pizza oven or a microwave or whatever. There’s versions of each one of these. Very simple. Stephen tells you exactly what to do. Anyway, I made them at home. I said, Dave, let’s try these stuffed tots. And we were like addicted. We just kept, I kept making them and make, I was like sick. I ate so many stuffed tots. I was like, I gotta stop eating these tots. So I want to congratulate you because I love to eat snacks and you hit me right in the sweet spot with this. And so I just wanted to give you some attention. I wanted to share you with the world.
0:11:28
(Speaker 2)
I love your story because it wasn’t an easy story. It was having to pivot from a completely other business, take a passion, go for it. My whole thing is risk it or regret it and you are like the poster boy for risk it or regret it, man. So I know you’re feeling happy. What’s the future looking like? I know that we’ve got commotion going on with a lot of people who are really smart and successful who now find you very
0:11:51
(Speaker 1)
interesting. What are you hoping for? Well what we’re doing now is we’re working with one of the largest egg chains in the country. We’re developing products for them for a breakfast line and retail stores nationwide that we’ll be launching towards the end of the year, first part of next year. That’s been a two-year process. We’ve also been working with one of the largest coffee companies in the country and doing some development for them along with working with hundreds of
0:12:22
(Speaker 1)
schools that have given us interest in our product because of the clean label and the response we’ve gotten from the schools we’re in, as well as convenience stores like the story I told. So this is really an all-day park. It can fit on so many different platforms and stadiums as well. And we’re just looking to make you know millions of these a week and
0:12:45
(Speaker 1)
get them out there because like you said and like you’ve experienced with Dave you cannot untaste and you are addicted once you start you know that what
0:12:55
(Speaker 2)
cracked me up and before we leave each other the fact that you actually got a patent on this is nothing short of fascinating people think everything’s been done before right that you can’t own something or protect something was that an exciting day for you
0:13:09
(Speaker 1)
It was one of the most exciting days at that time because everybody will tell you you can’t do it I’ve had people from some of the largest food companies in the world on our team as we started out Guiding us because my dad told me, you know, since I was nine years old, always admit you know what you don’t know and surround yourself with people smarter than you. So we have we surrounded ourselves with people from, you know, from these big, you know, big food billion-dollar
0:13:35
(Speaker 1)
companies telling me that, first of all, don’t go into food service, focus on retail. And I knew my gut told me to go into food service, hence the huge success we had with Holiday. And then when I told them I’m spending the money to patent a potato, they said, Caldwell, you’re crazy. This is how companies go out of business. You will never be able to patent a food product. And after eight revisions in two years, July of 2020, it was absolutely issued as a U.S. patent, and that’s where we’re at today. Amazing.
0:14:05
(Speaker 2)
And then congratulations again on your big article that just came out this week in the industry trend magazine, Food Service News. It’s called Total Food Service Publisher. Fred Clashman did an amazing interview with you, and it says, the operator’s finding 24-7 solution with crispy comfort and craveable stuffed tots. So I think you’re off to the moon my friend and I just wanted to sort of give you the moment and congratulate you and let my audience know about you and we’ll continue on and I will always try and you know bring value to help you get forward because I
0:14:35
(Speaker 2)
can’t deny that I love the action when I meet in a spirit like you and I like to you know join in the success. So have a great rest of your day. Be safe, okay? And everybody, if you want to find out more about that, the website is StuffedTots.com, correct?
0:14:51
(Speaker 1)
That is correct, S-T-U-F-T-Tots.com. Thank you, Debbie, love you. You have a great rest of your day. You have a great rest of your day.
0:14:57
(Speaker 2)
You too, Stephen Caldwell.
